1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an analytical system and, in particular, to an analytical system that can store analytical data at the site of an analytical machine or tool and transmit it in a wireless manner upon demand for further processing.
2. Description of Related Art
Various type of measurement instrumentation and analytical tools are increasingly being utilized and frequently require the processing of data from remote locations. Analytical machines and tools can include electrochemical analyzers, photo analyzers, electromagnetic analyzers, particle analyzers, thermal analyzers, gas analyzers, air measuring machines and tools, water quality measuring machines and tools, noise vibration measuring machines and tools, air pollution controllers, water quality environment pollution controllers, various kinds of physical quantity, and physical property measuring devices, material testers and the like.
It is known to use a local area network (LAN) as a communications network for providing data communication within one facility or building and sometimes the analytical data that is acquired from analytical machines and tools are transmitted to personal computers (herein-after referred to as "PASOCOM") and also computers called servers through transmission lines. A server system can be seen in FIG. 2, where analytical data from an analyzer device 24 can be connected with a server 21 through a terminal computer 23. Both the analytical machine and tool 24 and the server 21 and terminal computer 23 can be interlinked with transmission lines 22. As can be appreciated, analytical data can be held in common between each of these stations. In practice, however, the analytical data sent to an analyst is rarely held in common, but is primarily of interest to an individual analyst with particular responsibilities requiring him to collect data and provide an appropriate report. In such cases, a LAN system in which the servers 21, a plurality of terminal computers 23, and a plurality of analyzers 24 connected through hard wire transmission lines can be too expensive, complicated, and wasteful of resources.
Accordingly, the prior art is still looking for ways to secure and process remotely acquired data in an economical manner.